Verdict: False

Child shown is not Kier Starmer.

Fact Check:

U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer has come under fire recently because of his alleged inaction in regards to a grooming gang scandal that has rocked the country. Authorities are being accused of covering up the sexual assaults and rapes of over 1,400 children in Rotherdam, mostly at the hands of males of Pakistani descent.

A post on X claims to show Starmer as a child alongside Jimmy Savile, a British DJ and media personality that died in 2011. Savile was accused of sexually assaulting at least 63 people, with one accuser being as young as 11 years old. The caption mentions that it is not suggesting wrongdoing on Starmer’s part, however it tries to “raise questions” about the proximity between the two. It asks Starmer to comment on the photo.

The child shown alongside Savile is not Starmer, however. A search of images on UK photographic press agency Rexfeatures shows the image in the X post, and the caption reads “Jimmy Savile with some of the children when he visited Avon Tyrrel House, in the New Forest, Hampshire. Avon Tyrrel House helps disadvantaged children.” Starmer is not known to ever have been housed in a home of that sort.

RexFeatures/Screenshot

Furthermore, Starmer would have been too old at the time the picture was taken for it to be him. The Prime Minister was born in 1962, which would have made him 16 years old in the picture with Savile. No pictures of Starmer at that age are available to compare, but the child looks much younger than 16, almost certainly ruling him out.